Louie's Folly

Look at the last six races and you see a horse that has quietly been finding its feet. Those results — a second, then a fourth, fourth, fifth, fifth, and another second most recently — show a horse moving in the right direction, placing in two of its last six outings and coming home second just yesterday. That's not the form of a lost cause; it's the form of a horse that keeps competing and keeps getting closer. The win is still missing, but the pieces are starting to assemble.

At Class 5, the level where most of Louie's Folly's races have come, the record is a flat zero from four races — but again, that zero doesn't tell the whole story when the horse has been finishing in the places. Class 5 is the entry level of British and Irish racing, and it's where horses like this one are expected to eventually break through. The question is simply when.

The trainer is Denis Gerard Hogan, operating out of Cloughjordan in County Tipperary, and his yard has been in fine form — 58 winners sent out already this season, which is the mark of a stable that knows what it's doing. That kind of output suggests Hogan's horses are fit, well-prepared, and placed in races they can win. Louie's Folly hasn't delivered yet, but it's in competent hands, raced just yesterday, and clearly still very much in training. When a yard is firing at that rate, it's usually only a matter of time before the horses on the cusp finally cross the line.